Little Less Love
by Tomorrows Dust
Summary: You have a year,' Dean said. 'Nearly a year, Sammy. And when the year is almost over, I will break the deal, and you will die.' Nothing is worth going to hell for.


**Little Less Love**

**Tomorrow's Dust**

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'You have a year,' Dean said. 'Nearly a year, Sammy. And when the year is almost over, I will break the deal, and you will die.'

_Nothing is worth going to hell for._

Dean didn't say how he would break the deal and Sam didn't ask. He mulled it over in his head for about ten minutes and arrived at the most logical conclusion. There aren't too many ways to break a deal, especially not one with a soul at stake. Dean was, in all likelihood, personally going to kill him.

The demons probably don't believe he has it in him, but Sam knows how ruthless Dean can be when it comes to survival. Big brother is playing the game with his soul at stake, but he isn't planning to pay up. For some things the cost is too high.

You don't deal with demons - lesson one of their childhood - you trick them. Dean never planned on buying Sam a future, he is playing to give himself one extra year to say goodbye and that has got to mean something. It has to be evidence of something heartbreakingly _good _and _pure_.

Proof of love perhaps, of some warm bond between them that will reach beyond the grave. Sam comes up empty. It means shit to him, because Sam will still the one staring at the underside of the grass. A year isn't all that long, not if you know that's all you've got.

.

One year. Impossible long and frightfully short at the same time. There are so many issues, Sam thinks, with himself, with their fucked up family, with his brother's act of devotion and selfishness. One year of sleepless nights is not enough for Sam to examine them all.

It frightens him, how time comes upon, floods his senses like heavy rainfall floods a valley, and leaves him gasping for air and struggling for the surface. He's clawing his way through the water, trying to escape it, but also trying to capture as much of it as he can without drowning (_I need more time. Oh God, I'm not ready, not ready to die)_,but the hours drip out from right between his fingers and he still can't breath.

.

His big brother is playing an amazingly dangerous game just to give him a little more time, - to give _them_ just a little more time - and that should be something to be grateful for, but sometimes Sam's thoughts spin out of control and bump into traitorous shadows in the corners of his mind, like a hyperactive, foolish child might bump into a bad guy in a dark alley, and everything good and kind about him gets pounded into the dust.

Sam finds himself wishing that Dean would've let him stay dead. Dying this way is viciously, savagely tearing him apart from the inside out. He's so angry sometimes, so angry that he genuinely wonders if there's any humanity left in him.

Sam wants to mourn the brother he has to leave behind; the life that they were both supposed to have. He longs to be able to grieve for everything that he'll never have, but his sense of loss is muted and eventually becomes drowned out by the harsh unforgiving awareness of his blood fluttering through his veins with violent, aching sweetness. (_I want to live)._

.

There are a few times – rare times – when his impending death makes Sam feel like the wealthiest man in the world, because he knows his time is limited, and that makes him truly appreciative of the present. He lives more fully than he ever has before. A rich man is one who knows what he's got.

Sometimes this understanding makes Sam feel like dancing to some ancient, primitive rhythm that only he can hear. One afternoon, when the skies are made out of nature's lead, the clouds have purple edges and the wild drums of his heartbeat serve to invigorate his soul, he walks barefoot out into the streets and allows himself to be overcome by awed reverence and a feeling that is almost acceptance.

He tilts his head to the sky and smiles like he's at peace. He feels every fibre of his being reverberate with joyous possession of that infinitely precious thing, _life._ He has always had it, but becoming fully conscious of it makes him feel like flying and free-falling all at the same time. It makes him believe in God again, just a little.

.

More often than not though, Sam curls up in the middle of his bed, aching inside and out, and craving the feeling of tears on his cheeks. If only he could cry. The constant pressure inside his head is driving him insane.

He still hasn't asked Dean about the breaking of the deal. Dean will probably shoot him. No one has ever claimed Sam was stupid. He knows. They don't talk about it. They don't have to. It wouldn't change anything.

The silence forms a wall between them and sometimes Sam wants to rip it to shreds with his bare hands. He wants to hit it with nothing but his naked knuckles until something breaks, until someone bleeds, but every time the raw urge threatens to overtake him, Sam closes his eyes, calms his breathing and wires his jaw shut with nothing but steely determination.

.

They talk about food and hunts, the weather and pretty girls, but they skirt around anything that might actually mean something. 'What's left about us that's real?' he asks Dean. He smiles up at Dean when a concerned hand touches his back and Sam tries to pretend he's not counting the minutes. Neither of them can answer this question. 'Never mind,' Sam says. 'Let's not think of the dawn.'

There are no tears for Sam, not once during the entire year, but Dean makes up for that. Big brother is the one who does cry. Often and long. He's given up on locking himself up in the bathroom whenever he has a breakdown.

He just hurries over to Sam like time's running out, - and it is. God, it's going fast - and wraps his arms around his little brother as were they iron bands, imprisoning Sam with his love, and Dean whispers to him all his regrets, all his failings.

Sam closes his eyes and wishes that Dean would've let him die in peace. He's so tired. So damn tired. _You should feel guilty,_ his mind accuses Dean, but Sam doesn't ever say it, even though he thinks it's true.

'You're a good brother,' Sam says and he makes some soothing noises as Dean's nails dig crescent moons into his skin. Sometimes he even means it.

He knows all the things Dean has done for him throughout their entire lives, it's just... it used to make him feel warm and protected, but now, the memories seem far away. The tears dripping into his hair scald Sam's skull like drops of boiling water. Stinging, sizzling pinpricks that Sam has learned to hate.

'Forgive me,' Dean pleads into his little brother's hair. 'Forgive me.' Sam bends his head and pretends he's crying as well, but he's empty. There is no relief for him in tears, and the truth is that he's just a little on the bad side of angry because he knows that it's Dean who is dragging him through this hell. Loved ones should not torture each other like this. Sam feels healthy and strong and he wants to live. He wants to live. He wants to live.

It takes all of his willpower to not just sneak off into the night and leave Dean to all the consequences. He thinks he remembers a time when they used to love each other, but now he's not so sure. Everything is so messed up, so unreal, he may have imagined it all.

'I did it because I love you,' Dean says. _But not enough to let me go,_ Sam thinks. _And not enough to save me. Look at the monster I'm becoming._ But he also blames himself. How can anyone's heart remain untouched in the face of so much devotion?

Sam only feels dead inside. He laughs hysterically when he thinks about it, laughs even harder at Dean's horrified face. 'I'm just a desert,' he giggles. 'A desert with holes in the sand.'

It's when Sam lies awake at night, staring at the ceiling, counting every single damn second, that he honestly believes he is going insane. Something moves inside him, dancing with the shadows in the room, gnawing at his mind, twisting him.

Maybe Dean has broken the both of them. What he did wasn't a good thing. There was a very real evil at the core of it, and it has tainted them. It has dug its claws into their very being. It has wrought metal hooks through what they are to each other and it's pulling them to pieces.

'I hate you. I hate you. I fucking hate you,' Sam whispers into the dark.

Love had turned into a mere memory, a precious artefact kept behind glass, and Sam is unable to reach it. _What you did was unfair to both of us. _

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Sam has bad thoughts. Terrible thoughts. About things he'd like to say to Dean to deliberately hurt him. To have him share in this god-awful agony that he is forcing Sam to go through.

He thinks about hitting Dean and punching him and stabbing him and cleaning a gun and aiming it just so, and squeezing, just briefly, because then it all wouldn't be so hard, and maybe Sam could get to live. (_I want to live). _It is a scream in his head that echoes constantly, bounces off the walls of his mind and gains strength until it is deafening in its intensity, and the voice of Sam's conscience is almost completely drowned out.

He draws his gun from where it rests against the small of his back, hesitates, but hands it to Dean and says he doesn't need it any more.

'Keep it as a memory of me.'

The temptation lessens, but the craving never goes away. Sam dreams about how he'd like to fly away and leave Dean to his hell. He often wakes up smiling and is intensely disappointed to discover Dean in the bed next to him, breathing steadily. The soft rise and fall of his brother's chest unchains a fury in him that threatens to burst out of his chest and consume everything around him (_ashes, ashes, ashes, fucking burn already)_, but he always manages to control it enough not to act on it. It simmers, though. The anger has become a constant, and through everything, permanency is something that Sam has learned to embrace.

Sam figures he'll probably burn for even thinking all those horrible things. Even if Dean's deal had allowed him to come back with his soul intact, which he doubts, this year was enough to erase what's left of it.

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Two weeks before the grand finale, and Sam hasn't taken off and hasn't gone homicidal on Dean's ass, so he hopes that if there's a God, his restraint will buy him some sympathy points.

'I'm ready for this to be over,' he tells Dean.

He's not really, but he doesn't think he'll ever be, so now is probably as good a time as any. Better dead than more of this dreadful suspension. The least Dean could do for him is to let him die on his own terms. After everything, Sam still likes to be in control.

'Let it be today.' Dean just shakes his head. His movements look odd somehow. Stiff, as if he's hurt and he's trying not to show.

'I need a little more time,' he pleads. 'I need a little more time.'

Sam sighs, but some of it is relief. Knowing he's going to die feels like a hippo has parked its hide on his chest. His fear chokes him. _I don't want to be so scared all the time._

…............................................................................................................................................

Dean shoots him in the back of the head on a Tuesday morning.

Sam knew it was the day from the moment he woke up, but because Dean is hurting even worse than he is - skinny, gaunt, pitiful ghost of a man that Dean's become - Sam pretends he doesn't suspect a thing. He thinks he can afford to be kind to his brother one last time. A small act of mercy. How mess up have they become.

Dean looks like he's the one dying. He frees himself by pulling the trigger, but demons of his own making will forever be on his tail. Maybe that's why he shoots Sam from the back. It's easier, perhaps, not to have to look his brother in the eyes. Maybe Dean is worried Sam would struggle. It doesn't matter. It is what it is, but Sam feels a shot to the back of the head is demeaning somehow. Impersonal. Unkind. Before, Dean had held him when Sam died. Sam thinks he preferred that. There is no familiar face to look at now. Just the stained carpet of a run-down motel coming up to meet him.

Sam doesn't hear the gun go off, but he feels pain flare from the back of his neck. It hurts so bad that he feels his mind pulse somewhere beyond his skull and then he's falling. It's all very... slowmotiony. The floor is sluggishly rising up to catch him. Colours at the edges of his vision explode and run over into each other until the world looks like a water-colour painting gone wild.

Nobody told him dying would hurt this much. Sam had never heard of any head-shot victim feeling pain, but he figures that's probably because they were too dead to share. The agonizing fire licks at his consciousness only briefly, but it feels like eternity in a handbag. _Where the hell did that thought come from? Fuck, _Sam thinks. _Fuck._ And then he's gone.

_._

_Nothing is worth going to hell for. _

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Dean rocks and sobs and chokes on his grief. He waits with the usual simple cremation until the body really starts smelling and Sam doesn't look like Sam at all any more. Dean doesn't know how to let go. 'I did it because I loved you more than I loved myself,' he cries when he builds the pyre. But Dean wanted to live too and something had to give.

With trembling hands, he fumbles with the matches. He drops them a few times before he can get one to light up. Dean's lips are drawn back from his teeth in a sort of animal-like sign of pain as he watches the fire spread. The light of the flames is reflected in his eyes.

It was only a half-sacrifice, but they're both burning for it.


End file.
